In the 80’s and early 90’s I played a lot of the science-fiction-role-playing game called Traveller. Those hours and hours of gaming produced the characters and stories I turned into my novel AeroQuest, now AeroQuest 1, 2, and very soon 3. So, most of this artwork is either for the game and was used as a part of it, or the book, used as an illustration.
Tiki Astro is an artificial robot boy that looks fully human.
Filed under aliens, artwork, humor, illustrations, Paffooney, science fiction
I did some house-cleaning today. The ceiling fan in the kitchen was filthy. It had grease from cooking on the nearby stove top all over the blades. And embedded in the grease was dirt and grime. So, it had to be scrubbed with Clorox. And I am allergic to Clorox. So, now I am done for the day. My lungs hurt. And it is hard to think. But I am not dying today from that. I am pretty sure the virus that has us shut up in the house has other plans for me.
But not everything is bad. Dust is bad. I am allergic to that too. Yet, I have now gotten 1,800 followers on WordPress. And somebody is using Amazon Prime to read more than one of my books. The pennies are rolling in on my Amazon author’s dashboard. Number one son has a serious girlfriend. Number two son has a work-at-home job that he is doing right now. And my daughter, the Princess, is helping her mother to finish cleaning the fan.
As part of my quest to rewrite AeroQuest as a comedy-science-fiction series, I am rereading the first book in the series.
Rereading your own work can be surprisingly rewarding in unusual ways. When I was working on that novel and reading and re-reading each section and Canto, I really began to hate the writing. It is my worst work so far. And yet, after plenty of time to forget how awful it seemed at the time, I find myself laughing at the jokes again. I know I am a notoriously un-critical critic. But I also am convinced I am a good writer, and even my bad books are better than I usually think. Now, if only somebody else would read them.
Work continues on AeroQuest 3.
So, even if I am a little bit down and blue, I am not out yet. The Dust wlll not win.
Filed under angry rant, cleaning genii, family, humor, Paffooney
Canto 87 – The New Star League (the Multi-colored Thread)
Ged was still a bit stunned when he made his way the next morning to the meeting in Shen Ming’s Hall. But he knew it was going to be important as Shen Ming claimed to know nothing at all about it, which always turned out not to be true, and Tkriashav said it was about the direction the Prophecy would take next.
He entered the Masters’ Study to find Shen Ming sitting behind the desk, contemplating the desktop with his off-kilter stare. Tkriashav stood behind him with his arms crossed, looking disgustedly at the two guests standing before them. One was a clownish-looking fool in a scout uniform. The other was a young boy wearing tights that bore the insignia of Tron Blastarr’s Outpost.
“So, Liz was right. A scout ship has come to Gaijin.”
“You knew about the prophecy?” Tkriashav asked him.
“Not until she told me about it last night.”
“Did she tell you this little incident will require the founding of the New Star League?”
“No, she must’ve forgotten about that part.”
“We should kill her, Ged. She’s a spy for the Imperium. We don’t know who she’s meant to help in the working out of the prophecy.”
“But she’s the mother of my son.”
“Ah, gave you the egg, did she?” said Shen Ming with a grin that could kill a bear.
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Shen-sensei!” swore Tkriashav with a very mild swear. “Why do you insist on never telling me about the things you read in the prophecy?”
“For one who can read minds, you really don’t understand much about thoughts and feelings, I fear.”
Tkriashav’s glare had shifted fully to the back of Shen Ming’s spotty old head.
“Ah, so you must be Ged Aero, the famous White Spider of Prophecy.” The clown in the scout uniform wiggled his thick, black eyebrows weirdly.
“Who’s asking?” Ged asked.
“I am Captain Spaulding, the African Explorer.”
“No, you’re not,” said the boy. “You are going by the name of Bill the Postman.”
“Oh, right, right. It’s hard to forget sometimes. And easy to disremember.”
“Since when does the Imperium send messages and videos to Gaijin?” asked Tkriashav. “Gaijin is an unknown planet to the Imperial Scout Service.”
“The ISS don’t pay me enough to come here. Fortunately, the Star Nomads do.”
“Star Nomads?” Tkriashav asked.
“The Star Nomads? What are they?” Ged echoed the Psion.
“I thought you knew everything, old Zaranian spooky-dude. The boy can explain later. He’s a gift to Ged Aero from Tron Blastarr and the Magnificent Wanderer.”
“A boy is a gift to me?” Ged didn’t like the idea of people as property, let alone as gifts.
“Oh, not quite a boy. Take your head off and show them, Tiki.”
To Ged’s horror, the child peeled all the flesh and hair off his head, revealing a silver face that looked like Artran if it weren’t bald and made of metal.
“You are a Metaloid?”
“Yes,” said Tiki. “Your Metaloid from now on, Ged-sensei.”
“Even programmed with Gaijinese honorifics, he is.” Shen Ming smiled at the child as he put his head back on. “You will accept this boy, Ged, as a gift to the White Spider and an honor to own.”
Ged nodded consent, since he really had no other choice.
“Now we need to settle some details about the New Star League,” insisted Tkriashav.
“Like what, for instance?”
“Well, we have worlds to sign an alliance with to finally form the League.”
“What worlds?”
“Well, I was thinking of proposing Gaijin itself as the capitol world. Then there is the world you still own at Don’t Go Here.”
“I don’t really own that world. It’s a democracy now.”
“Yes, as is the world of Zarane which I have already secured in an alliance.”
“Three worlds against a thousand?”
“We also have treaties in our possession with the former Psion world of Phoebus IV. Tron Blastarr has pledged the forces and star system of Outpost, as Razor Conn has the system of Dancer. We may still take back the world of White Palm. And we have word that Duke Ferrari now reigns over Farwind.”
“So, seven worlds… maybe eight.”
“Yes.”
“Against a thousand.”
“Well, minus Dancer, Farwind, and White Palm, so more like 997.”
“Ah, comforting that sounds,” remarked Shen Ming.
“You will go with this Bill the Postman today as he leaves here?” Ged asked.
“Yes, as I seem to have no choice by the Prophecy,” answered Tkriashav. “Although it makes me worry to leave with this scout whose strange mind I cannot read.”
“Are you suggesting, sir, that I have no mind to read?” asked Bill who was really Scarpigo Snarcs but had first claimed to be Captain Spaulding.
“Certainly not. But you are not human. You are some sort of time-traveling being.”
“Ah, my mind is an open book, then,” said Bill Spaulding-Snarcs. “You just have to live with the fact that all the pages in it are blank.”
“You see what I mean about him not being human?”
“Yes. Where will you go?”
“What other choice is there? I must go back to Don’t Go Here. And when I go there, I must work out plans for the New Star League with Frieda. Ancient Technology has a large part to play in the Prophecy going forward.”
“At least you don’t have to go to Don’t Go Here alone,” offered Shen Ming with an inscrutable grin.
“Who is going with me?” Tkriashav seemed startled, an unusual state for one who reads minds so easily.
“Lizard Lady,” said Ged. “The Prophecy told her to leave too, just as it told you.”
“That’s a good sign,” said Shen Ming. “You are going to a planet called Don’t Go Here with a woman you would rather not go with in a space ship piloted by a man with a mind like a book with blank pages in it. Poetic to say the least.”
“And the least said, the better,” said Scarpigo-Bill Spaulding. “If you ask me, that is.”
Filed under humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, science fiction
On this Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you) I am a little perturbed that practically everything, including Star Wars, is on the fritz. My computer is on the fritz. It starts all sorts of programs and actions within programs without being prompted by a keystroke or click command. The picture I posted at the start of this essay had to be downloaded from Google twice because it downloaded the wrong selection for no reason. And then it had to be pasted into the block editor twice also because the first attempt failed to finish the transition.
Of course, for something “to be on the fritz” and be well understood, it would help if we knew the origin of the phrase. Unhelpfully, no one really knows how it was initially used. Was it a reference to something about Germans? “Fritz” was a common nickname for German soldiers in two world wars. But probably not. Germans are not always haywire.
I think it far more likely that the word is an onomatopoeia for the sound a radio makes when there is a short, it sparks, and then malfunctions, if not catches fire. That seems to me to be a much more fitting image to use for the way my computer works today with its faulty keyboard, and/or mouse pad. It also is a fitting definition for the condition our economy is in due to the pandemic.
But on this Star Wars Day, it is the most apt phrase to describe what has been done to the Star Wars Saga. Don’t get me wrong. I am an uncritical critic. I loved the Rise of Skywalker in the movie theater. The images and the action were great. But the writer in me did not appreciate how wires were crossed in the making of the latest trilogy. The resulting dumpster fire, while colorful and visually entertaining, caused the power of the story to be definitely “on the fritz”.
Character arcs were ruined. Kylo Ren went from evil secondary antagonist to big bad to heroic turn-around to… what? His character dies and disappears at the end. Why? How did he complete his arc?
Rey went from child of nobody to Jedi to possible Sith Lord to…? Where does she end up? Palpatine tells her if she kills him, his spirit will infuse her with Super Dark Side Power. She kills him anyway? Will she now try to destroy the universe in the next trilogy?
And what did Finn do besides ride a horse-thing in space?
But I’m not complaining. Even if the pandemic is going to kill me shortly, I have had a good life. I have seen all the Marvel movies so far. I taught English to well over 2,000 kids in a thirty-year teaching career. I wrote fifteen novels that I published. And no amount of sparks, fire, or fritzing is capable of changing all of that.
I used to work for a principal who would come on the morning announcements every day to welcome us to school with another anomalous and annoying alliteration. We had numerous Magnificent Mondays, Terrific Tuesdays, and Wonderful Wednesdays. Thursdays were harder. And Friday was usually Fun. See, I think I ironically proved I can do it too, if not better.
It has been my goal to set Friday posts aside as days to either be funny or to tell stories about being a school teacher… or, quite naturally, both at once.
But ironically, Trump and Pence have made it extra difficult not to talk about politics. One has been so blatantly idiotic in his quasi-fourth-grade-intellectual pumpkinheaded blathering. While the other has been robotically ignorant, heartless, and unmindful. Not wearing masks in hospital visits? Recommending injecting cleaning fluid? I can’t even be ironically funny by throwing flat irons and curling irons at them, since those would just bounce off the walls of the house I am confined to.
But, even though the Bughead Boys are making original humorous thinking difficult, there are things that make me happy. I qualified and signed up to be a substitute teacher again if a new school year ever happens. They are pleased enough with my performance to make that a reality for me today. And I do love teaching, though each year of it is increasingly difficult physically. I just have to eat more spinach, keep talkin’ loik Popeye, and try not to die of Coronavirus.
And I have not yet gotten any kind of stimulus check from the gubbermint even though I know people who have. But I am happy that, for this month at least, the State of Texas is not yet bankrupt and ready, with Mitch McConnell’s permission, to cancel all future pension payments.
So, if I can’t be all that funny today, at least I got a chance to complain. And I didn’t even manage to squeeze out any jokes about slave-girls, even though there is a definite slave-girl thing going on in the illustrations today.
Filed under doll collecting, humor, photo paffoonies
Am I literally able to fortell the future? Of course not. But as an overly-sensitive artistical type one could argue that there is evidence in my art and writings that my reality now was at least partially embedded in my consciousness many years ago.
And truthfully, looking at the truth of things based on empirical evidence is what this point-of-view post is all about. We cannot always rely on the traditional concepts of good and evil as they have been taught to us. Sometimes you have to look at how the evidence stacks up properly, and just plain intuit a new way of seeing the whole picture. Yes, this is a portrait of a fifteen-year-old former student of mine. And she was definitely evil and difficult to deal with. But she went into nursing after high school. She works in the ER where her decisive ways and ferocious insistence on having things work out in her favor because that’s the way the established rules say it must be done turn into positive qualities that are probably saving lives in a Texas hospital as we speak. It is all in how you perceive the truth of a situation and then apply it.
Comedy, of course, depends greatly on rearranging your point of view. If you are going to make a joke about something, you have to re-mix and un-match the details in ways that still make a sort of sense to the reader or the hearer of the joke. I have taught at schools like Dudwhittler’s. If you are a teacher, you recognize that that school bus carries not only that which is funny, but also that which is very true. The teacher driving the bus is a tin man who easily rusts and cries too much, thus rusting further, but you can see he has earned his heart, even if he has to drive the bus on top of teaching so he will have enough money to buy food.
But probably the most anticipated thing from a new perspective that you were expecting since reading the title is a new perspective on the Coronavirus shut-down and economic depression. That alternative take is simply this… the pandemic, though extremely hard and painful, is a good thing that happened at the right time.
I am willing to say this, even though the way the virus has been mishandled in this country is going to very likely be the death of me, because there are benefits that we simply don’t recognize without a thorough punch to the gut and another to loose teeth.
It is a good thing because it will make it harder for Herr Fuhrer Pumpkinhead to win the next election, and he will probably take a number of corrupt Republicans down to the bottom of the sea with him.
It is a good thing because it is proving to us that we can survive on less and still make our way out of the bad situation.
It is a good thing because kids get extra time off from school, and probably also the chance to spend more time with the people who really teach them things we need them to know… like parents, grandparents on Zoom, teachers who don’t fear distance-learning technology, and trolls on the internet (Yes, I know that last one is risky and mainly learning the hard way, but it is also true from before the virus hit).
It is a good thing because the air is cleaner. And we have proven that we can make radical adjustments when it is a matter of life and death. And the environmental crisis is actually a matter of life and death.
So, now I’ve had my twisted say about my pretzel-minded perspective. And so you can now trash it, or possibly learn to like pretzels.
Filed under angry rant, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, goofy thoughts, grumpiness, humor, Paffooney, satire
Nocturne 7 – The Prophecy Fulfilled (the White Thread)
Ged returned to the Palace of 1,ooo Years with a lot on his mind. But, in truth, the last thing he was thinking of was becoming a biological father.
As he was entering the apartment that he shared with the Lizard Lady, he was surprised to see her sitting at the table with her feet folded under her and a large green egg on the tabletop in front of her.
“What is this, Liz?”
“You have been busy, my love.”
“I have, yes.”
“So have I.”
Ged suddenly had an eerie feeling about what this all meant.
“Is that…?”
“It is. You must say hello to your firstborn son.”
“But that is an egg.”
“One cannot fool the White Spider.”
“Galtorrian females lay eggs?”
“We do. Its gestation still has another six lunars to go.”
“Six Gaijinese lunars? Ten Earther months?”
“That is correct. You were in Galtorrian form when he was conceived. He will be as pure-blooded as any Galtorrian ever is.”
“How do you know it is a boy? Is he already formed in the egg that way?”
“That I do not know. But this is the child of the prophecy. This will be Lizardboy Aero, heir of the White Spider.”
“You will tend the egg like a bird? On a nest?”
“Not quite. Shen Ming has the necessary incubators to raise a Galtorrian cub. Lizardboy will not be the first eggborn delivered on this planet.”
Ged knelt on the opposite side of the table.
“May I hold it?”
“Certainly. You are his father.”
Ged carefully took the leathery but firm egg from her. He turned it over and over in his hands, examining it carefully.
“My mother on Questor would never have believed this of her son if she were still among the living.”
“May Zhan keep her soul, and may she be blessed by her grandson from another world.”
“Are all Galtorrian purebloods born by eggs?”
“Not all. There is much Earther DNA in Galtorrians. They have been intertwined for more than three thousand of your Earth years. Possibly from a time even before our two home-worlds were ever aware of each other.”
“I know fusions like Phoenix and Taffy King were born the way Earth humans are born.”
“Yes. All fusions are born the Earther way. That is why they are so much more human-looking than I am.”
“Ah, but you are beautiful too. I admit, I never felt it at the beginning, but I do love you now. And I will love this boy as well.”
“Now comes the hard part, my love.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it hadn’t been for the Prophecy of Zhan, I would never have met you. But my part in the prophecy is not yet ended. I am still a spy in the service of the Imperium, and I still have a destiny to fulfill.”
“So… what does that mean for the two of us?”
“We must part for now. I will leave in the morning, heading back into the Imperium.”
“In what ship? There is only the Dragon and the Rooster on this planet now.”
“The prophecy says a scout ship will arrive tomorrow. I must be on it when it leaves.”
“How will I raise our son without his mother?”
“You will be a wonderful father. And young Sara Smith is not the only lovely little lady that will happily play mother to our son.”
Ged’s head was swimming with emotion. This parting was completely unexpected and unwanted.
“But certainly, we still at least have tonight?”
“We do still have tonight.”
Filed under aliens, finding love, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, science fiction
Stuck in the house all day with no outside activities to distract me, and limited socialization with the other denizens imprisoned in the house with me is more-or-less the perfect thing for a fiction writer with cancer of the imagination glands.
I have plenty of people to talk to, since , in this situation, imaginary people count too. And there is no end to the things I can talk about since ideas keep welling up in my head, even if many of them are totally silly ideas, and the rest are probably evil.
It helps to have a talking dog. Though my kids would argue that Jade isn’t really talking, that I am, instead, merely interpreting things I think she should be saying as if it were real speech. She does talk an awful lot about different kinds of meat and the moral imperatives of allowing your dog to eat people food. But I think it is only proper to commit to writing those things she says when we’re alone together, because, after all… a possible talking dog?
But imagination is one of those things that sets people… I mean, human people, apart from all other life forms that we know. Imagination makes the man. What would we have made of ourselves and our world if we didn’t have it? Would we have invented the wheel? Fire? Term life insurance? I think not.
I may, in fact, be going a little stir crazy in the old hovel while trying like heck to avoid death by Coronavirus. I am easily as frayed around the edges as any hopeless hobo, with even my beard-trimming growing wildly erratic. Soon I may have to tell the imaginary people who surround me and question everything about me that it is not a beard any more. Rather, it is either a crocheted hippie neck-warmer rather than a beard, or maybe it has become a furred, frilly collar on my shirt like Shakespeare probably wore for the premiere of King Lear.
No, I am not going stir-crazy, or even a little bit insane. I am just letting the words unwind as they fill me up and demand to be unreeled in order to prevent an explosion in the brain.
Filed under being alone, goofiness, humor, photo paffoonies, surrealism
I finished a novel a week ago. I am almost ready to start a new writing project. But severe sinus headaches and the extreme pollen count outside are slowing me down. It is alarming how green and bloomy this Spring is turning out to be. It is almost like something has magically taken the pollution out of the air and kept humans from spoiling the environment for over a month. There isn’t something out there I wasn’t aware of, is there? Beyond the pandemic and other consequences of the warming climate crisis, I mean?
My book is about a boy forced to make a new life for himself, being forced to live with a stepmother and two twin stepsisters he never met before the tragedy, and in the unfamiliar world of the nudist park where his father now lives with his new family.
But that is over now. New projects are about to take over my life. I plan on finishing AeroQuest 3 : Juggling Planets, But that is not my new work-in-progress. That is a rewrite of the novel I wrote and published in 2007 with a scammy publishing company that no longer exists. I also plan on furthering my graphic novel, Hidden Kingdom. I have been working on that thing in one form or another since college in the 70’s.
My next original writing project will probably be the novel The Wizard in his Keep. As A Field Guide to Fauns was the novel that finishes the arc of the character Sherry Cobble, this new novel will do the same for the wizard character from Superchicken, Milt Morgan. It will be about Milt’s adulthood computer wizardry and how he uses it to rescue lost orphans through a fictional world inspired by The Lord of the Rings. By that I mean Milt’s virtual-reality world will be all sword and sorcery, and revolve around a Robin-Hood-like boy-hero named Hoodwink. The in-game story, lived by the rescued orphans will magically re-unite Daisy and her two younger brothers with their lost family, though not their lost parents.
But, the whole point of this post is that things are going slower for me on this new project. The turn-around time from one novel to the next will not happen as quickly as the last time. I don’t have writer’s block. But I do have health problems. And today’s massive headache is a reminder that I am getting older fast. And there’s also a little matter of a coronavirus stalking me, hoping to catch and kill me. Ah, life just keeps getting easier!
Filed under humor, novel plans, Paffooney
Catch a Falling Star 
Stepping Out of My Skin
Who exactly am I?
I know who I wish to be.
And I have a pretty clear idea
Of who I have actually been.
Bur do I have a notion of who I am now?
Have I finally awakened after watching…
The bowling of little green men?
I live inside the heads of characters,
And walk around in their imaginary lives.
I pretend to be someone I don’t want to be.
And then I try to break out again.
But the problems I have
Are not quite my own,
Though once they were
In the long-ago way back when.
I look into mirrors that are shattered,
And see myself twisted and grim.
And I complain about just what I see there,
And the poetry just does not rhyme.
Who am I?
Where am I?
What am I?
How?
Mostly I think
I’m that thing from the circus.
You know the one.
That thing that rhymes with brown.
But mostly also I think,
I am something entirely else.
A writer.
Yes, that’s the one.
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Filed under artwork, autobiography, commentary, foolishness, humor, Paffooney, poetry, writing, writing humor